Obesity and Maternal Periodontal Disease do not Cause Changes in Offspring's Adult Life - Study in Rats

Objective: To investigate the influence of MSG obesity and maternal periodontal disease on the mandibular bone loss of male offspring in adulthood.

Methods: 60 neonatal Wistar females were used and randomly separated into two groups. During the first 5 days of life, half of the female pups received subcutaneous injections in the cervical region of monosodium glutamate (MSG), and the other half-received of hyperosmotic saline solution (CTL). All animals used in the experiments received water and standard feed. At 70 days of life, animals were distributed into four experimental groups: control with no ligature (CTL NL), control with a ligature (CTL WL), MSG with no ligature (MSG NL), and MSG with a ligature (MSG WL). The four groups of females reproduced with control rats (2:1). Offspring (F1) were classified into 4 groups, according to the mothers' treatment. Hemimandibles were collected for histological, morphological, and radiographic analysis and a portion of gingival tissue for analysis by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) of cytokines IL-6, IL-10, IL-17, and TNF-alpha. Data were assessed using Two-way ANOVA and Tukey's test.

Results: There were no changes related to maternal hypothalamic obesity associated with periodontal disease in alveolar bone loss in the male offspring of F1 rats at 120 days.

Conclusions: Hypothalamic obesity and maternal periodontal disease did not affect the body and plasma parameters of their male offspring in the first generation, demonstrating that there was no effect of fetal programming on these parameters.